Boris flies in with 600 ducks, but waddle he say on Brexit?

He talked about why the mayor was the hero in the movie Jaws and how the light- saber in Star Wars was invented in London, while explaining how the last episode had been filmed in Ireland.

However, Boris Johnson didn't give away much about why he thinks Brexit will be the success he claims it will be.

He even talked about how his plane to Dublin had been delayed because they were loading 600 ducklings that were being exported from Britain to Ireland.

Limelight

Returning to Star Wars, he asked the audience if they knew where in Ireland it had been filmed, apparently unaware of the Skelligs himself.

Before a crowd of around 3,000 people at the Pendulum Summit yesterday, he was interviewed by RTE's Bryan Dobson.

Nobody was allowed to film his presentation.

However, he posed for photos with "diamond ticket" holders and appeared to enjoy the limelight.

Later, Dobson put it to him that he had "flip-flopped" in his views on the European Union.

The RTE man pointed to comments by the former foreign minister on BBC radio and television in 2012 when he strongly backed the UK staying in the EU and availing of its single market free trade and tariff-free customs union membership.

Boris said he had been a news correspondent based in Brussels from 1988 until 1995.

He said he was "quite ideal- istic" about the then-European Community at the start of his work, but he gradually became "very sceptical" about it, especially its moves towards political union.

Mr Johnson pointed out that RTE's Tommie Gorman was a correspondent in Brussels during his own time there.

"Ask Tommie whether I was ever a Euro enthusiast," he said.

When Dobson tried to get him to explain how a hard border might affect someone who manufactures and exports widgets, Boris cut in, beginning an example of how it might affect someone who imports orange juice from California.

Later, comedian John Cleese took to the stage for his own presentation on why creativity is so important.

Asked if he had any advice for the audience, he said: "Don't have children - you worry yourself sick about them, they cost a fortune, then they grow up like their mothers."

Speaking to the Herald afterwards, he said he believes nobody knows what is going to happen with Brexit.

He revealed that he quit the UK on November 1 because he was "disgusted" by what is happening there.

He said he is now living happily in Nevis in the Caribbean, where life is "safe and beautiful".